New Deal

New Deal,

in U.S. history, term for the domestic reform program of the administration of Franklin Delano RooseveltRoosevelt, Franklin Delano, 1882–1945, 32d President of the United States (1933–45), b. Hyde Park, N.Y. Early Life

Through both his father, James Roosevelt, and his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, he came of old, wealthy families......Click the link for more information.; it was first used by Roosevelt in his speech accepting the Democratic party nomination for President in 1932. The New Deal is generally considered to have consisted of two phases.

The first phase (1933–34) attempted to provide recovery and relief from the Great DepressionGreat Depression,in U.S. history, the severe economic crisis generally considered to have been precipitated by the U.S. stock-market crash of 1929. Although it shared the basic characteristics of other such crises (see depression), the Great Depression was unprecedented in its.....Click the link for more information. through programs of agricultural and business regulation, inflation, price stabilization, and public works. Meeting (1933) in special session, Congress established numerous emergency organizations, notably the National Recovery AdministrationNational Recovery Administration(NRA), in U.S. history, administrative bureau established under the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. In response to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's congressional message of May 17, 1933, Congress passed the National Industrial.....Click the link for more information. (NRA), the Federal Deposit Insurance CorporationFederal Deposit Insurance Corporation(FDIC), an independent U.S. federal executive agency designed to promote public confidence in banks and to provide insurance coverage for bank deposits up to $250,000......Click the link for more information. (FDIC), the Agricultural Adjustment AdministrationAgricultural Adjustment Administration(AAA), former U.S. government agency established (1933) in the Dept. of Agriculture under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal program......Click the link for more information. (AAA), the Civilian Conservation CorpsCivilian Conservation Corps(CCC), established in 1933 by the U.S. Congress as a measure of the New Deal program. The CCC provided work and vocational training for unemployed single young men through conserving and developing the country's natural resources......Click the link for more information., and the Public Works AdministrationPublic Works Administration(PWA), in U.S. history, New Deal government agency established (1933) by the Congress as the Federal Administration of Public Works, pursuant to the National Industrial Recovery Act......Click the link for more information.. Congress also instituted farm relief, tightened banking and finance regulations, and founded the Tennessee Valley AuthorityTennessee Valley Authority(TVA), independent U.S. government corporate agency, created in 1933 by act of Congress; it is responsible for the integrated development of the Tennessee River basin......Click the link for more information.. Later Democratic Congresses devoted themselves to expanding and modifying these laws. In 1934, Congress founded the Securities and Exchange CommissionSecurities and Exchange Commission(SEC), agency of the U.S. government created by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and charged with protecting the interests of the public and investors in connection with the public issuance and sale of corporate securities......Click the link for more information. and the Federal Communications CommissionFederal Communications Commission(FCC), independent executive agency of the U.S. government established in 1934 to regulate interstate and foreign communications in the public interest......Click the link for more information. and passed the Trade Agreements Act, the National Housing Act, and various currency acts.

The second phase of the New Deal (1935–41), while continuing with relief and recovery measures, provided for social and economic legislation to benefit the mass of working people. The social securitysocial security,government program designed to provide for the basic economic security and welfare of individuals and their dependents. The programs classified under the term social security differ from one country to another, but all are the result of government legislation.....Click the link for more information. system was established in 1935, the year the National Youth AdministrationNational Youth Administration(NYA), former U.S. government agency established in 1935 within the Works Progress Administration; it was transferred in 1939 to the Federal Security Agency and was placed in 1942 under the War Manpower Commission......Click the link for more information. and Work Projects AdministrationWork Projects Administration(WPA), former U.S. government agency, established in 1935 by executive order of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the Works Progress Administration; it was renamed the Work Projects Administration in 1939, when it was made part of the Federal.....Click the link for more information. were set up. The Fair Labor Standards ActFair Labor Standards Actor Wages and Hours Act,passed by the U.S. Congress in 1938 to establish minimum living standards for workers engaged directly or indirectly in interstate commerce, including those involved in production of goods bound for such commerce......Click the link for more information. was passed in 1938. The Revenue Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937 provided measures to democratize the federal tax structure. A number of New Deal measures were invalidated by the Supreme Court, however; in 1935 the NRA was struck down and the following year the AAA was invalidated. The President unsuccessfully sought to reorganize the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, other laws were substituted for legislation that had been declared unconstitutional.

The New Deal, which had received the endorsement of agrarian, liberal, and labor groups, met with increasing criticism. The speed of reform slackened after 1937, and there was growing Republican opposition to the huge public spending, high taxes, and centralization of power in the executive branch of government; within the Democratic party itself there was strong disapproval from the "old guard" and from disgruntled members of the Brain TrustBrain Trust,the group of close advisers to Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he was governor of New York state and during his first years as President. The name was applied to them because the members of the group were drawn from academic life......Click the link for more information.. As the prospect of war in Europe increased, the emphasis of government shifted to foreign affairs. There was little retreat from reform, however; at the end of World War II, most of the New Deal legislation was still intact, and it remains the foundation for American social policy.

Bibliography

See B. Rauch, History of the New Deal 1933–1938 (1944); A. Schlesinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal (1959) and The Politics of Upheaval (1960); M. Keller, ed., The New Deal: What Was It? (1963); R. Eden, ed., The New Deal and Its Legacy (1989); W. E. Leuchtenburg, The Supreme Court Reborn (1995); G. E. White, The Constitution and the New Deal (2001); A. L. Hamby, For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s (2004); A. Cohen, Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America (2009); I. Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (2013).

New Deal

a system of measures undertaken by the US government between 1933 and 1938 to mitigate the contradictions of American capitalism, which had been aggravated as a result of the economic crisis of 1929–33. The New Deal is associated with President F. D. Roosevelt.

During the first period of the New Deal (1933–34) laws advantageous to large-scale employers were passed. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which was passed in 1933, provided for the introduction into various branches of industry of “codes of fair competition,” which fixed production costs and levels of output and allocated market areas. Basically, the codes supported the largest monopolies at the expense of small and middle-level employers. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), which was passed in 1933, was designed to raise prices for farm products by paying monetary compensation to farmers who reduced sown areas and livestock herds. These and subsequent New Deal economic measures directed at state regulation of the economy constituted an important stage in the development of state-monopoly capitalism in the USA.

A number of laws were passed during the second period of the New Deal (1935–38), a time marked by the growth of the working-class and democratic movements: Among those passed in 1935 were the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act), which reinforced NIRA provisions concerning the right of workers to organize trade unions and conclude collective agreements, and the law providing for social security and for aid to the unemployed, the first such law in the history of the USA. The Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) established minimum wages and the maximum length of the workday for certain categories of workers.

The labor and social laws of the New Deal expressed the government’s aim to deaden the class struggle and weaken the workers’ and mass democratic movement. Through their struggle to expand the framework of bourgeois democracy, the toiling masses forced the ruling circles of the USA to undertake reforms and compromises.

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